In response to the key questions:
1. How do these tools transform the traditional role of library?

My short answer is, THEY DON’T! Tools don’t transform anything. They are only useful in the hands of the user. It is WE that transform our libraries. WE take these tools, spend time becoming familiar with them, find relevant applications to our curriculum, work with other teachers and use the tools to transform the learning of our students so that THEY become active in their learning laboratory!

2. How did I construct new knowledge and further develop my teaching philosophies using Web 2.0 tools?

Hmm, this is a tricky question. I think that some of the ‘fear of the unknown’ has abated. Learning about these tools and their potential in education has opened my mind to new possibilities. I think it has reinforced the notion that I can use these tools, like any tools (books, encyclopedia’s, dictionaries, films) to enrich a program and give more interest to some lessons. I have constructed new knowledge in getting to know social networking programs such as Facebook and Twitter and to see the usefulness of these tools. I am not afraid of them and can understand the appeal to students. I have opened my eyes and mind to the possibilities of blogs, wikis, photosharing, movie-making and social bookmarking. These are now becoming tools in my toolbox that I can pull out and use when the occasion arises. So, I guess my teaching philosophy has changed in the fact that I am more open to collaboration with other teachers through del.icio.us and twitter networks and can integrate many of the Web 2.0 tools into what I already do and will do in the future.

I spent some time on the special edition of School Libraries Worldwide that was linked to this lesson. It is an excellent resource. I could especially relate to the following sentence from Asselin’s and Doiron’s page:

“We need to draw on our traditional leadership in building collaborative teaching and learning activities in order to engage students in new learning environments which harness their innate interests in new technologies and connect their in-school and out-of-school literacy practices.”

On their blog, they have a link to web 2.0 videos (see http://web2videos.blogspot.com) Here there are some excellent videos on the topic that I watched and more that I didn’t have time to watch. Well worth the visit to this site.

After looking at the resources in this lesson, here is what thoughts are developing in my mind about the future and Web 3.0:

• I think that Web 3.0 will show a shift in the thinking of more people. More individuals and businesses and education organizations will get on board with creating unique data and materials on the internet.

• Community and collaboration will become more widespread and user customized.

• I think photo, video and music creation and editing will become even easier and accessible to a wider audience, not just the geeks or geek wanna bees like me.

• The web will be smarter, creating personalized connections for individuals based on their preferences and based on the data that they have contributed to the web and on what they read and consume.

• Our privacy will become even more difficult to keep as we interact more and more with the tools and technology. We will become more ‘known’ to the brains of the web and will have to be even more vigilant about identity theft and other nasty side effects of becoming public personalities.

• Desktop computers will not be the standard anymore. Most Web 3.0 tools will be portable. We’re already seeing that trend happen. I am personally wanting to invest in an ipod touch, but am holding off until I can justify the expense and hoping that the price will come down like in most technology tools.

• I think that the future of the Web will engage more learners and become more mainstream. Even grandparents will be on board. I think of my aunt who is 85 years old. She’s on the internet and e-mail and loves sending and receiving pictures and jokes. While I believe she is an anomaly now, people like her will become more common place in the web 3.0 world. Seniors will be networking and connecting and continuing in their learning until well past retirement.

In the video by Robin Sloan and Matt Thompson, they predict that users will be generating their own news items and publishing them to the internet with images and mapping technology and that large scale news agencies will cease to exist in their present form. I’m not sure if they actually believe it, but it is food for thought. Their video is found at http://www.albinoblacksheep.com/flash/epic and was recommended viewing in this lesson. I really like it for the history of Google and Amazon in the first half. They portray an interesting future of the digital world in the next 6 years.

It is very relevant to what we have been learning.  I like the simplicity in the way it was produced and the depth of the message.  Here it is.

See http://lindsayarticle.wikispaces.com/

This is a key issue in many schools today, both Elementary and Secondary.  Good teacher-librarians that have collaboration time built into their timetable and a supportive, advocating administrative team with adequate funding and keen, open-minded teaching staff  . . . is this even a reality?  Or is it only a dream?

This article was very interesting to read, and I liked the way you (Angela and Christina) laid out your analysis.  You did an excellent job summarizing this very long article and adding your own touches to it.  The advocacy links at the end will be a wonderful reference when it comes to backing up the library program in my school.

I see our role as T-L’s as quite political in nature – even though I mostly steer clear of politics in general.  We need to get out there and run our ‘campaign’:  Advocating for funding to run our programs, getting the support of our administrative team who will work with the district on our behalf, and getting teachers on board to work with us.  We need to have a clear idea of what we can accomplish with students and teachers and present those options to the administrative team in order to get release time for planning or allocate funds for materials from various budgets. We are leaders in the school. Having articles such as this one help us in our advocacy.  We can quote the following from the Lindsay article:

“Students whose teacher- librarians take active planning and teaching roles also tend to achieve higher test scores. At the heart of these findings is the ability and willingness of teachers and
teacher-librarians to work together to plan, implement and evaluate lessons and
units of study (Asselin, 2001, Lance, 2001; Lance 2002b).”

I am in the unique position of having our VP as our main T-L.  She is training me to take over her job.  So, our library has full support of the administration at the moment.  However, when she leaves, it will fall on me to advocate and personalize my role in the library and lab.

I really agree with what Lindsay said, and that you also pulled out in your summary that, “collegial collaboration is the factor that most clearly characterizes successful schools”.

I greatly appreciated your tips in section 5 about Teacher Overload.  Many of the suggestions you gave are so practical and easy to implement.  The key items for me right now are to ‘learn the curriculum and what teachers are doing in the classroom” and to “start small”.  One thing I did that was very appreciated this year was to find some good Internet sites on Mesopotamia for a Gr. 7 teacher.  I sent him 4 or 5 links by e-mail, unsolicited by him.  He was extremely pleased that I had taken time to look them up. This has opened up more doors to collaboration with this teacher.

Celia brought up an important point in her discussion on Mar. 29 about the physical location of the library.  I believe this to be very key.  Our library is in the centre of the school in what can be compare to a sunken living room.  There are no walls in our library.  While it makes it rather noisy at transition times, the library is really the hub of the school and gets noticed by everyone.  It is the first thing everyone sees when they enter the school.  It takes a certain kind of T-L to be able to tolerate the noise and chaos of the comings and goings.  Our library is definitely not quiet, but it gets well used almost all day.  Unfortunately, we do have to close it ½ day per week because there is not enough staffing to cover it.

With the library as a key part of the school, the Principal supporting the clear vision of the T-L, and a keen teaching staff, we can create wonderful learning opportunities for our students!

The Nine Flavours of Open Access Scholarly Publishing 

by John Willinsky University of British Columbia, Canada, 2003

And

The Devil you don’t know: The unexpected future of Open Access publishing. By Joseph J. Esposito, August 2004.

Willinsky has a powerful argument for the positive sides of Open Access Publishing. After reading his article, I can more understand the widespread appeal of having scholarly articles available freely and online. I know that I have benefited from journal articles for this course and am so pleased that I could find them through the UBC databases and elsewhere online free of charge and with immediate access. I have gained knowledge and understanding from articles I would never have read if I had to subscribe to them and have these journals mailed to my house, or even if I had to reserve them online and have them sent from libraries. It’s too much hassle when I just want to peruse an article. While scholarly e-books do not have the same appeal or demand, electronic journals offer much more appeal and ease of access. I agree with the statement that ‘open access journals are making research available to a much wider range of readers than print and subscription models have been able to achieve”. People are now looking to the internet for their information, and if they can find good quality academic journals, they will certainly look to those as resources.

While I don’t completely understand all of the issues involved in the various levels of Open Access, I am interested in the statistic that the Education Policy Analysis Archives that started in 1992 as an unqualified open access journal has 2,500 visitors every weekday from 75-80 countries. The fact that some articles have 50,000 hits, or readers, is astonishing. The potential to spread your message and share your knowledge is incredible.

How these Open Access Journals are financed is beyond me. Willinsky says that often the “work represented in a research article has all been paid for in advance.” I don’t really understand, even after re-reading the article, how these journals that offer open access can recover their costs and earn money. Willinsky does state that ”among the various approaches to open access, there is still a place for subscription and other forms of revenue.”

This article has given me a glimpse of what Open Access Scholarly publishing is about, and even though I don’t understand it fully, it has given me a general understanding of some terms and concepts that I may come across in the future.

Joseph Esposito’s article, published in the completely Open Access journal called First Monday, says that publishing that is available to one and all for free will not come about through our current publishing practices, but rather through new media built for that purpose, but the cost that was traditionally borne by subscribers and advertisers will have to be recovered elsewhere.

For us, as students and consumers of the material, Open Access is a wonderful thing. However, as Esposito states, “publishers . . are threatened with the destruction of their business model . . . and potentially of their business.” Scholarly authors want their material to be in publications that are widely read to advance their careers and they want to have access to others’ work. How can they get it if cost is prohibitive?

Esposito causes us to imagine the powerful implications of full Open Access: library budgets available for other purchases, people in developing nations have full access to information from around the world, regular citizens expanding their knowledge and curiosity just because they feel like it, and “further the progress of research itself.” However, he argues that most academic journal articles are written for the authors’ community of researchers at institutions that already subscribe to leading journals in their field and that the general public is unlikely to read these anyway, even if they are O.A.

The debate on how this will be paid for is a complicated one. Esposito writes in depth on the ‘author pays’ model and the ‘user pays’ model. Someone has to pay, in the end if you want to have reliable sources and checks and balances to ensure the quality of the research. All this is expensive.

Open Access sounds wonderful to me, but I’m really not sure if it is a feasible way to go when it comes to high level academic journals. These need to be peer reviewed and accurate, coming from a solid research base. They must be separated in some way from personal publishing, such as blogs. The cost must be very high to produce and publish the articles. However, authors really want their material to be read and used, so may be willing to pay to have their work indexed in Open Access. Just like people used to pay for blogs space to have their work available to the world, the authors or people who finance their work should be open to having it available for the world to read.

Willinsky J. The Nine Flavours of Open Access Scholarly Publishing . J Postgrad Med [serial online] 2003 [cited 2009 Mar 15];49:263-7. Available from: http://www.jpgmonline.com/text.asp?2003/49/3/263/1146

Esposito, J. The devil you don’t know: The unexpected future of Open Access Publishing. First Monday, Volume 9, Number 8 – 2 August 2004.

Upon wading through the Wikipedia article on Open Source Software, I understood parts of it, and other parts flew way over my head. My basic understanding is that it is kind of like Wikipedia. People –often experts in their field – develop it because they want the general public to have access to and the use of this information and these tools. Developers give of their time and expertise for the sole purpose of enriching other people’s lives and making these tools useful and accessible to all. It is free to use, change, improve and is done in a collaborative manner. It sounds wonderful. What’s not to like? I know that I use Firefox, which is Open Source and I find it excellent. I love the fact that it has add-ons like the delicious tool bar where all my links are right there and if I want to save another one, it’s just a click. There are other add-ons that I find very useful. I hadn’t heard of a lot of the OSS tools, other than LINUX as an operating system.

I took a quick look at the Open Source Integrated library system Pines (which is known as Evergreen) for the Rossland, BC library catalogue that uses that system. I also checked out a couple of public library catalogues run by another OSS ILS called KOHA. I found both really clear and easy to use. Our district is in the process of automating and getting away from the old card catalogues- finally – and we’ve paid thousands for a library database company. Now I wonder if we shouldn’t have gone Open Source. I guess it may be because of staffing, expertise, and maintenance and upgrade fears. It probably would be scary for a whole district to take on OSS, but maybe not!

I checked out http://www.totlol.com. I guess the title comes from Tot, laugh out loud. Cute. It’s a child friendly video channel – powered by YouTube, but totally screened. An excellent resource.

According to Wikipedia, Learning Management systemis ” software for delivering, tracking and managing training. LMSs range from systems for managing training records to software for distributing courses over the Internet and offering features for online collaboration”. This course is my first experience in using a LMS for study. It was a pretty steep learning curve, but has turned out to be adequate. There are a few shortcomings though, that I hope improve in the future. Links need to be click-able. When a collegue sends a link, we have to copy and paste each one into our browser. I know it’s not that difficult, but we are so used to just clicking on the links and having them open from e-mails, web pages and blogs that it seems a hassle to copy and paste. Another thing that has never worked for me was the chat feature. I tried on many occasions, to no success.

I’m not sure if I see this LMS of Vista as a TSS (teacher support system) as I don’t know what features are offer to the teachers of the course. I see it more as a content management system and a discussion board. It doesn’t really offer much support as we are essentially on our own throughout the course with minimal feedback.

I am, however, very grateful for the opportunity to use this LMS in order to take higher education remotely. It has been very informative and enriching and I have learned a TON. With a job and a family of 5 to manage, I couldn’t possibly have taken a course at the University level in person on a campus. So, having Learning Management systems available for learning on-line has benefited me a great deal, and I’m sure many thousands of other students. It will also be useful for my son next year who is taking an online high school course. Without tools such as these, we would not have as easy access to courses.

In the article One-Stop Shopping With Learning Management Systems. http://www.thejournal.com/articles/22723, there is obviously a big need that is filled by the use of these systems in the public schools. It is great that additional software can be added so that blogs, podcasting and wikis can be integrated with the Blackboard system. I think that would offer a lot of enrichment to the programs, especially the ability to add charts, tables, and multimedia. “Teachers can plan a lesson, see the curriculum, store and obtain resources, engage their students, be notified of upcoming professional development, get informed on happenings in the district– they can do it all packaged at this one location.”

Open Source is a great asset to those of us that are exploring web 2.0 tools. We don’t have to lay out a bunch of money in order to experiment with these new tools. I like the fact that we can start with free tools and then, once we’re comfortable with them, pay extra if we want for more added features. I’m assuming it’s the same with Open Source Learner Management systems.

In this age of the internet, a lot of people are willing to share their expertise in developing these programs free of charge. Thanks to them, we too can share our thoughts and expertise and the cycle of knowledge expands and we are enriched by it.

http://www.xtranormal.com/watch?e=20090328173815304

See: http://gayle-corinne.blogspot.com/

Only a few years ago, the terms ‘blog’ and ‘RSS feed’ were a mystery to me.  It was only for those computer geeks who had nothing better to do with their time.  Oh, how I have changed.  Now, I have had the chance to create and use a blog, and subscribe to a number of sites using RSS (mostly podcasts) and I can see the potential for use in education.

This article took away some of the mystery of blogs and gave a lot of interesting ways that blogs can be used in an educational setting.  Your analysis of the article was very complete and your resources at the end are wonderful.  I think that we as Resource Teachers need to have some knowledge in these areas, even if we haven’t used them, to be able to share the possibilities with other staff members.  Having your resource list will be very valuable.  I have bookmarked some of them on my delicious account for future reference.

It is interesting to see that your ‘advantages’ column is almost double the size of the disadvantages.  That bodes well for trying out this format with classes.  I strongly agree that using blogs as a form of communication can help reduce plagiarism and also help some of the introverted kids to have a say in matters that they wouldn’t normally express in class discussions.  ESL learners could also learn by reading their classmates entries and writing responses with the help of some of their tools like hand-held dictionaries that they carry with them.  They cannot use these so easily during oral discussions and many feel too shy to join in.  A blog could be of real benefit for the students and for the teacher to evaluate improvement in the ESL learner.

When I looked at the disadvantages, I thought a few of these may diminish in time as more schools, hopefully, engage in technology education as part of their programs.  Keyboarding skills are widely taught at my school and I can really see how that benefits all of the students.  I also understand how some kids may not want to participate because it is seen as extra work, but if it is set up as an assignment, and time is provided in the lab or on the class computer, maybe it could be successful.  I think that if the kids don’t ‘have to’ do it, they won’t go voluntarily, just like we wouldn’t as adults.

While this article was written more from a University course perspective, I can see many applications for elementary.  Your links also are helpful to generate ideas. If we can just get up the courage to try a project using a blog, and to start small, it may take away some of the anxiety we may have.  I think a collaborative writing assignment between primary and intermediate students would be fun.  It would be ‘easy’ for the intermediates because they’d be writing simple sentences that the younger kids could read.  The little kids would be happy to have their big buddies helping them and would be excited to read their contributions.  I can see the need for extra lab time and maybe a few parent volunteers to act as ‘readers’ for the students who struggle.

I’ll have to try it, when I have time and a teacher willing to work with me on a special project.  I don’t think I could pull it off on my own with 40 minutes a week.

I first discovered podcasts when I got my ipod only 2 years ago. I discovered them through logging on to the iTunes store and seeing a podcast button. Just exploring that and seeing that they were free and that I could listen whenever I want was a wonder. Now I ‘subscribe’ to a number of podcasts on personal and professional subjects and listen to them while doing menial jobs around the house like cooking, laundry and cleaning, as well as when I’m exercising and waiting for my kids at their lessons. They are a wonderful way to pass the time, and I actually prefer listening to my shows rather than music. I always learn something or get a bit of inspiration every time I plug in. My children get frustrated sometimes when I can’t hear them. They razz me that I’m just as bad as they are! I am now discovering lecture series and I have even heard of university courses given through podcasting.

We don’t have TV at my house, so this is my convenient way of learning and entertainment at home. And, I can do other things at the same time, instead of sitting on a couch.

I was unaware of the Education Podcast Network. I am glad that it was in this lesson. I have a variety of teaching interests from music and dance education to computer education, to library. There were podcasts to choose from in all of these areas. Podomatic was another interesting site I explored. It had a lot of variety and looked clean in content. I saw that hosting a podcast was free and didn’t stipulate being over 13 to get an account, so it may be an option for a school project. I checked out Switchpod as well, and it looked good. Some of the kids and family podcasts gave inspiration for how I may use podcasts for students to share their learning. It would be great to give them the public speaking skills without the added difficulty of video.

I found the article, “Podcasting 101 for K-12 Librarians” a fascinating read. One quote that struck me was, “While creating podcasts, students learn to research, write, develop vocabulary, speak effectively, manage time, solve problems, and grab attention.” I really appreciated the steps the author listed under “Create your Own Podcast”. These could be adapted and given to anyone in the school interested in pursuing podcasting. She also gave Podcasting directories and recording software lists at the end of her article.

In reading this article and exploring podcasting, I thought of the following applications that could be used in my school library:

1. Have gr. 6/7 students record their reading of Easy books for the younger students to access. Create a page where the younger students could click on the picture of the book and have it read to them in the library by one of their own school-mates. Books that go with the podcasts would be on display beside the computer stations.

2. Students would read their original compositions for others to listen to. The listening students could create illustrations using drawing programs and submit them to the creator.

3. Students could do readers’ theatre presentations on a podcast,

4. Dramatizing literature.

5. Giving oral book reviews and book talks to help other students in the selection of great reads. The Teacher-Librarian could be involved in this also by talking about good books in different areas.

6. There could be a link to other podcasting sources where books are read aloud, such as Tumblebooks or LibriVox.

7. Put a podcast introduction to the library services, hours, and any news items such as guest speakers, author visits, and exciting projects.

8. Create interviews with staff about their favorite children’s books and post those in a podcast format.

Now onto Mashups:

Wow! That’s all I can say. The power of mashups is only limited by the creativity of the user. I can make my own mashups of sites, rss feeds and information that is important to me using iGoogle. The Delicious Library 2 was amazing and the fact that the Mac computer’s built in camera acts as a barcode scanner to scan your personal library is incredible. This would be really fun to test out at home, but I’d have to have lots of time and be willing to put out the $40.00 US for it.

I understand Mashups to be a personal customization of things that interest you in all it’s forms combined: audio, visual, maps, news, education, articles, blogs . . . all forms can be put together in one place for easy access and integration. It is rather mind-boggling, so I’ll leave it as is for now, so my brain can rest.

Refer to http://477.wikispaces.com/

First of all, the wiki looks great. It is wonderful to see bold, bright images, graphics, multimedia, and even a cartoon in your document. It really does pull the audience in, much more than just text. Right away, I was curious to see what you had to tell us, and was anxious to click on the video links even before reading anything.

I read through Manuel’s article, all 22 pages of it, and was happy that you did the analysis. I think you did a wonderful job pulling out the key issues from a lengthy text.

Students have always “learned best when the material is made meaningful to them”, but now we see from this article that what is meaningful has changed for this generation. I think we, as educators, need to do more to connect with what appeals to them, like we are doing in this course, to really have a larger effect. There are many Generation Y teachers now who are actually teaching kids of their own ‘era’. I wonder if they are largely more successful or not in engaging their students and making the learning more meaningful – or if it still comes down to the ability to inspire and engage no matter what our age.

Our Gen Y students certainly have unique needs and abilities. I agree with many of your Plus statements from the Manuel article and can see necessary adaptations to our/my teaching to effectively reach this population: using more visuals, giving opportunities for students to customize their learning, find ways that they will enjoy their work as they will learn more (aren’t we all like that?), using peers to our advantage ie; group work, interactive assignments. This generation certainly has a positive view of technology. Unlike many of us, it doesn’t frighten them or overwhelm them, so they are open to trying new things and spending the time exploring. This can be used to our advantage in teaching them.

A couple of items you wrote in your PMI chart caused me to pause and to question their placement. What you saw as a plus, I may interpret as a Minus.

“Rely on their peers because they spend minimal time with adults. (split homes, working parents, far from grandparents)” I think this is the way it has been for many generations, not just Gen. Y. Teens especially rely on their peers for so much. I’m not sure how you see this as a plus.

“See their refusal to follow complex written directions as “an assertion of personal values and determination” rather than laziness or disobedience (If you don’t respect my needs as a learner, I have no requirement to complete the assignment)”. There is always a fine balance between assertion and disrespect. I can understand that they don’t want to follow complex written directions, but hopefully they have the skills to respectfully request a different way of fulfilling the necessary tasks. Balance is a tricky issue.

You did an excellent job summing up the negative, or perceived negatives, of this generation. It was fascinating to be able to picture specific students in my classes who fit this mold so well and it makes it more and more understandable why the old teaching styles of the boomer generation of sitting in rows doing worksheets all day just doesn’t cut it. These students need to understand the purpose behind the work we give them and have a need to be ‘entertained’ in education. It makes it difficult for us to find a balance of making our teaching interesting and engaging and then sometimes just insisting they do the necessary grunt work. We can’t always be entertained; sometimes it’s just plain old hard work in life. We need to prepare them for that too. I’m sure their future bosses will appreciate the young workers that can just get the job done in a positive and efficient manner without the need to be entertained.

I can totally understand the item in the Minus column that states: “View lectures about the dangers of the internet as the older generation “trashing” something because they don’t understand it.”

Here, here to the statement in your conclusion about eliminating standardized tests that pigeon hole curriculum and force us to continue with ‘teaching to the test’. Often, these tests are so irrelevant to their lives and their learning. Even though we have wonderful, creative, innovative teachers that can engage students and give them collaborative enriched projects, we are held back because of these tests and the results that accompany them that are still, sadly, valued by certain sectors of our society.

The comics are great! So funny. Thanks too for the wonderful article links and video clips. I can see sharing some of these at a staff meeting or parent workshop.

I know that kids are so drawn to video and spend many hours watching various clips, video’s and even full programs on YouTube.  As for how media collections and video creating and sharing can ‘transform libraries’, I’m not sure.

So, I set out to explore the sites listed in this lesson

Here are my impressions:

TeacherTube: I have allowed students to explore TeacherTube during computer classes, because I was not worried about inappropriate videos like on YouTube.  They have some interesting videos that could be useful for teaching. I found some science experiments that are good for my grade 2 class.

Googlevideo: On first glance, it’s mostly YouTube videos put onto Google.  On the home page were music videos, television programs and other entertainment type clips.  However, I did a search for Science Fair Projects and came up with a wealth of videos of varying sophistication levels.  Many would be good to show for science. It seems that Googlevideo is an amalgamation of clips from all sorts of video sharing sites.

Vimeo: The videos were very slow to load and weren’t streaming very quickly, so it would play for a couple of seconds and then stop to stream some more.  Rather annoying.  There was not nearly the depth of information available as on YouTube or TeacherTube, but there were some really creative pieces.

Last year, with my grade 2/3 French Immersion class we were studying geometry, specifically shapes in our environment.  I put together one movie using iMovie and iPhoto, and then I had the students make one with me.  I had never posted them to a sharing service, so I thought I’d try both Vimeo and YouTube.

Signing up for Vimeo was very simple.  About 30 seconds.  I saw that there were little tutorials, but I just skipped over to Upload and put on a little video clip I made a while ago.  Easy.

I could not use Vimeo for my students to have an account because the terms and conditions say you have to be 15 years old to have an account.  So I wouldn’t have them have their own.  I may, however, use my account to post videos they make, but they’d have to be general and not have the kids in them.

YouTube: Probably the most popular video sharing site.  Lots of inappropriate ones mixed in.  You have to be careful.  You can find almost anything on here is you put in good search words. I read the “about us” section and then realized that YouTube was purchased by Google in 2006.  That explains why Googlevideo is predominantly made up of YouTube clips.  Here is an interesting quote from YouTube’s ‘terms of service page’: “In any case, you affirm that you are over the age of 13, as the YouTube Website is not intended for children under 13. If you are under 13 years of age, then please do not use the YouTube Website. There are lots of other great web sites for you. Talk to your parents about what sites are appropriate for you.”  I really wonder how many kids under 13 are watching videos from this site.  Thousands, millions?  Should I not be showing students anything from this website?  Questions to ponder.
Signing up for YouTube was a snap.  I then succeeded in posting my video clip of a geometry movie I made for my grade 2 class.  It was fun and easy.  I have another video with the kids in it, but I didn’t want to post that one for privacy reasons.  I was quickly able to embed my video into my WordPress blog with my handy Firefox add-on called ‘post to WordPress’.  Just one click and it’s in my blog.
One thing you need to do is go into the privacy settings in your YouTube account and check how you want to share your videos.  Easy, but important.

TED: A wonderful site.  Interesting and innovative.  You can easily spend hours exploring and you learn something every time.  I could definitely see using some of the TED videos with students.

Slide:  So easy and really fun to make.  I made a Chrismas slide show in less than 5 minutes.  Quick to make, quick to post and lots of built-in sharing options to all the popular social networking services and blog sites.  A nice feature is that when you are watching the slides and you scroll over them with your mouse, the caption appears.  I could see using this to quickly post a slideshow of a special event for school.  I need to check out the privacy settings, but if I posted it to a school blog site in order to show it to the students themselves, and then deleted it later, it would be fine.  If you send them to ‘SLIDE’ directly, there are a few annoying pop-ups.

Animoto: I also signed up for and explored ANIMOTO that I had just heard about last week.  Here is the link to my first attempt at creating a presentation:

http://animoto.com/play/b3ibrjcOa0hxhn9AdNb5kA

Animoto was so easy to use and fun.  I enjoyed it.  I will explore importing it into iMovie to make it into a longer movie.

I can see a lot of possibilities for some of these applications in my elementary computer classes.  Collaborating with classroom teachers on projects would be the best way to go.  They could work in class and in the library on a subject and then come to the lab for working on a presentation of their learning using some of these tools.  I could help them with the tools and connect with the classroom teacher before and after I teach his/her class (I cover non-instructional time).  I think it would add a lot of appeal to many project and it’s not hard.  We’d just have to figure out how to set up an account that all kids could access without crashing the server!